Magic Quadrant for Wireless LAN Infrastructure, 2006

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Research

Publication Date: 6 October 2006 ID Number: G00143589

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Magic Quadrant for Wireless LAN Infrastructure, 2006

Rachna Ahlawat, Ken Dulaney

Wireless LAN technologies have matured. Most products now offer similar capabilities, but this is making it difficult to differentiate. Leaders and Challengers offer the least risk, but they lack leading-edge technology.

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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Wireless LAN (WLAN) products available in the market today offer very similar capabilities. The basic difference between vendors is in their overall strategy:

1. Incumbent wired networking vendors such as Cisco Systems and HP Procurve have a vision of offering integrated wired and wireless LAN switches.

2. Startups such as Aruba and Meru are primarily focusing on the enterprises that view wireless as an overlay of wired.

We strongly advise enterprises to carry out a full competitive review of different vendors' offerings after closely examining the true capabilities of their desired WLAN.

Leaders and Challengers in this Magic Quadrant will pose the least risk for client investment, but may not always provide the most leading-edge or current technology. Visionaries could provide this capability, but might present a greater risk. Niche vendors will typically appeal to their existing client base, to low-price buyers or to those looking for a specific set of features.

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MAGIC QUADRANT

Figure 1. Magic quadrant for Wireless LAN Infrastructure, 2006

Source: Gartner Dataquest (September 2006)

Market Overview

WLANs are becoming a standard part of enterprise networks. They are no longer confined to meeting rooms or visitors areas; they are now being deployed to cover entire facilities. More and more enterprises are moving toward third-generation WLAN architecture (access points with wireless controllers) in corporate headquarters and large branch offices. Smaller offices continue to deploy fully functional stand-alone access points.

The top three reasons for deploying wireless LANs are: 1. To improve productivity through mobility.

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2. To provide access to places where wiring is impossible or too expensive to install. 3. To improve efficiency in specific business processes or operations.

From a technical perspective, WLANs are now considered secure — both through the adoption of Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) standards and native improvements to the technology. WLANs have joined LANs as full members of the "behind the firewall" infrastructure. The security solutions offered by all vendors have begun to raise the 802.1X authentication framework as an issue that clients must consider on their technology road maps. However, problems of interoperability are still barriers to easier deployment. As wireless LANs expand from conference rooms to the whole enterprise, concerns about network management are arising. We've gone from thinking of offices as network nodes to considering each employee as a node on a wired network. Now every major physical item the company owns is becoming a node on a wireless network.

The enterprise WLAN infrastructure market is comprised of a number of high- and low-risk vendors with varied capabilities. The best vendors will provide the widest array of options to tailor to a client's needs at the optimum price points. They will also offer flexible security and strong management tools. The good news is that the functions offered by the various vendors are narrowing to the core set described here. This is making the choice of vendor easier, but, at the same time, more complex, because it is more difficult to discern highly differentiated features. The top-rated vendors have global sales and service presence through direct or reseller

arrangements. Some vendors are stand-alone WLAN vendors that provide their technology as a non-invasive overlay to an existing wired network. Others possess a family of wired products that are highly integrated with the WLAN products. Where the latter exists, the best vendors have provided a single management console to control both network types.

Market Definition/Description

The enterprise WLAN infrastructure market consists of set of vendors that provide wireless IP networking solutions that conform to IEEE 802.11 standards through the Wi-Fi Alliance certification process. Vendor products include a minimum of two core components:

1. WLAN access points (APs) that distribute a Wi-Fi radio frequency (RF) signal to a variety of client devices.

2. A set of controllers that sit behind the APs to consolidate functions that are better served through centralized control when the number of installed APs exceeds five in a given area.

These components are required to support the full set of 802.11 worldwide assigned frequencies at 2.4GHz, 4.9GHz and 5.2GHz through 5.8GHz, even though some of the frequencies cannot be legally used in every country. All APs contain a minimum of two radios that can act either as service link radios or as air sensors for security purposes. All radios are typically configurable across any of the bands in the aforementioned frequencies. Each radio supports a minimum of 16 Basic Service Set Identifiers (BSSIDs). More advanced APs support the additional capability to use one of the radios for wireless backhaul and, in the more advanced systems, capability as a mesh networking vendor. (Note: mesh-only vendors are not covered under this market

assessment.) APs that can be used outdoors are optionally provided by most full service vendors. Vendors also provide a variety of antennae — from those that provide simple diversity, to multiple input, multiple output (MIMO), to higher gain antennae that provide increased coverage. All APs should also be configurable to repeater mode when range improvements are desired over capacity.

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All incumbent wired LANs have already launched WLAN products on their own or in partnership with startups. More acquisitions of WLAN startups are expected.

Based on disclosed information from vendors that wish their supplier relationships to be known, and from customers and other external sources regarding relationships that were not made public, we have determined the following partner relationships. Clients should verify these relationships should they become material to any product acquisition. Each vendor is shown, followed by its OEM partner (shown as not applicable [NA] where relevant).

3Com — Trapeze Networks Alcatel — Aruba Networks Aruba Networks — NA Bluesocket — NA

Cisco Systems — NA (Acquired Airespace in 2005) Colubris — NA

Enterasys Networks — Trapeze Networks Extreme Networks — Siemens

Extricom — NA

Foundry Networks — Meru Networks HP Procurve — Symbol Technologies Meru Networks — NA

Nortel Networks — Trapeze Networks Siemens — NA

Symbol Technologies — NA Trapeze Networks — NA Xirrus — NA

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

Products that serve this market must provide a minimum of security features, including Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) certification that enables over-the-air transmissions to be fully encrypted using the highest standard form of encryption, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Market participants must also provide air-sensing technology that can detect RF anomalies, including rogue APs, either through separate sensor or via a radio that can dynamically switch between service and sensing modes. All vendors must support the 802.1x authentication

framework to the minimum tested features within the Wi-Fi Alliance WPA2 test suite. They should have the ability to segment traffic and support guest networking in a secure scheme that does not expose secure internal traffic to outsiders. The more advanced vendors have begun to expand security options to cover wired connections, and even wide-area connections through integrated virtual private networks (VPNs) or other mainstream security methods.

Enterprise WLAN infrastructure products are supplied with management consoles that perform a number of tasks, including: assistance at setup and layout of the APs; ongoing assessment of the

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RF capability to ensure minimum quality of service (QOS); assistance in managing the security of the network; and management of the infrastructure, including firmware updates. The best

products have an intuitive user interface with all capability integrated within a common framework. Vendors usually supply second-generation, stand-alone access points and either

third-generation, centralized or fourth-third-generation, traffic-optimized architecture systems. Third-generation systems offload security and roaming at a minimum to a central controller, which is connected to the APs via either a Layer 2 or Layer 3 connection. Fourth-generation systems supplement this with software that controls access to the network by granting time slots for transmission vs. the client-controlled Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) mechanism of third-generation and earlier systems. Recently, all generations have been upgraded to provide QOS for voice clients by supporting a minimum of Wireless Multimedia Power Save, which prioritizes voice packets. Fourth-generation systems employ more

sophisticated network access schemes to further improve voice quality and are most popular when voice is a mainstream application.

In this Magic Quadrant, we include the vendors that provide third- and four-generation WLAN systems.

Added

Since there are a large number of WLAN startups, one of the criteria for inclusion in our Magic Quadrant is that the vendor should have been selling products for at least one full quarter prior to publication. Extricom and Xirrus started shipping products in 2H05 and so were not included in the previous Magic Quadrant, but have been added this year.

Dropped

The following two vendors are no longer tracked in this report.

Proxim, once a leader, is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Terabeam Wireless. For the last two years, Proxim was struggling in the enterprise WLAN space. Under the new management team, it has now decided to primarily focus on broadband wireless networking systems and is therefore not included in this report.

Vivato received more than $100 million in venture-capital funding but failed to make a mark in the WLAN market. It ceased operating in November 2005.

Evaluation Criteria

Ability to Execute

The criteria used to assess vendors in this Magic Quadrant are described in detail below. Since these criteria have changed from earlier editions, direct comparisons between this edition and previous ones are inappropriate.

Gartner analysts evaluate technology providers on the quality and efficacy of the processes, systems, methods or procedures that enable IT provider performance to be competitive, efficient and effective, and to positively impact revenue, retention and reputation. Ultimately, technology providers are judged on their ability and success in capitalizing on their vision.

Product/Service: Core goods and services offered by the technology provider that compete

in/serve the defined market. This includes current product/service capabilities, quality, feature sets and skills, whether offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as defined in the market definition and detailed in the subcriteria.

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Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization): Financials: Viability includes

an assessment of the overall organization’s financial health, the financial and practical success of the business unit and the likelihood of the individual business unit to continue to invest in the product, continue offering the product and advancing the state of the art within the organization’s portfolio of products.

Marketing Responsiveness and Track Record: The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of

programs designed to deliver the organization’s message in order to influence the market, promote the brand and business, increase awareness of the products and establish a positive identification with the product/brand and organization in the minds of buyers. This “mind share” can be driven by a combination of publicity, promotional, thought leadership, word-of-mouth and sales activities.

Customer Experience: Relationships, products and services/programs that enable clients to be

successful with the products evaluated. Specifically, this includes the ways customers receive technical support or account support. This can also include ancillary tools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof), availability of user groups and service-level agreements.

Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria Weighting

Product/Service standard Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy,

Organization)

standard Sales Execution/Pricing no rating Market Responsiveness and Track Record high Marketing Execution no rating Customer Experience high

Operations no rating

Source: Gartner

Completeness of Vision

Gartner analysts evaluate technology providers on their ability to convincingly articulate logical statements about current and future market direction, innovation, customer needs, and

competitive forces, and how well they map onto the Gartner position. Ultimately, technology providers are rated on their understanding of how market forces can be exploited to create opportunity for the provider.

Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently communicated

throughout the organization and externalized through the Web site, advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.

Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling product that uses the appropriate network of direct and

indirect sales, marketing, service, and communication affiliates that extend the scope and depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the customer base.

Offering (Product) Strategy: A technology provider’s approach to product development and

delivery that emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology and feature set as they map onto current and future requirements.

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Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources, expertise or

capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or pre-emptive purposes.

Table 2. Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria Evaluation Criteria Weighting

Market Understanding no rating Marketing Strategy standard Sales Strategy standard

Offering (Product) Strategy high Business Model no rating

Vertical/Industry Strategy no rating

Innovation high Geographic Strategy no rating

Source: Gartner

Leaders

A Leader will have demonstrated a sustained ability to meet the changing needs for mainstream WLAN architectures. Leaders should have demonstrated an ability to shape the market, maintain strong relationships with their channels and customers, and have no obvious gaps within the portfolio.

Challengers

A Challenger will have demonstrated sustained execution in the marketplace, and have clear and long-term viability in the market, but will not have shown the ability to shape and transform the market.

Visionaries

A Visionary demonstrates an ability to increase features in its offering to provide a unique and differentiated approach to the market. A Visionary will have innovated in one or more of the key areas of WLAN technologies (convergence, security, management or operational efficiency).

Niche Players

A Niche Player has a complete or near-complete product offering, but does not have strong go-to-market capabilities or innovation in its product offerings. A Niche Player still has a viable product offering and, in some cases, will be an appropriate choice for large infrastructure deals.

Vendor Comments

3Com

3Com has refreshed its WLAN portfolio in the last few months. It has introduced dual radio stand-alone access points and a 24-port unified wired and wireless switch targeted at small and midsize businesses (SMBs). The unified switch is developed internally by 3Com, but the company still relies on Trapeze for coordinated APs and centralized wireless controllers. 3Com resells Trapeze's controllers to its customer base as a wireless overlay solution.

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While 3Com has expanded its WLAN portfolio, its offerings are primarily targeted at SMBs. It is a big market for wireless, but consumer-grade wireless vendors such as D-Link, Netgear and Linksys have also moved up the chain and serve the small enterprise market. One feature that helps 3Com differentiate from consumer-grade WLAN vendors is its network admission control functionality, using TippingPoint's IPS server for wireless devices. But 3Com needs to further expand its WLAN offering to compete more effectively with startups that are offering a technically superior product for large deployments.

Today, 3Com mainly sells its WLAN products to existing customers. Consider purchasing WLAN infrastructure from 3Com if you have deployed its wired networking products.

Alcatel

Under a reseller partnership agreement with Aruba, Alcatel rebrands Aruba's APs and WLAN controllers under the Omniswitch product line. Unlike some of the other wired networking vendors, Alcatel has no plans to integrate wireless features into its wired switching platform. However, it does provide an option of managing wired and wireless LANs through the same console using its network management suite, OmniVista.

Alcatel could have a bigger profile in enterprise WLAN networking if it were not for its very limited presence in enterprise networking, particularly in North America. Alcatel's LAN products offer a well-thought-out, robust architecture at attractive prices, but the company continues to suffer from lack of resources that would enable it to sell more aggressively. Consider purchasing WLAN infrastructure from Alcatel if you have deployed its wired networking products.

Aruba Networks

Aruba Networks is becoming a "one-stop shop" for all wireless LAN needs. It has progressed well in the last few years and is providing infrastructure for some of the largest WLAN deployments worldwide.

It has a broad range of product offerings for centralized WLAN deployment, for campuses, branch offices and corporate small office/home offices (SOHOs). Aruba's initial offering consisted of a core WLAN controller with coordinated access-point architecture. It has introduced scaled-down versions of its core controller technology for branch-office and smaller-scale WLAN deployments. Since 802.1x is gaining momentum, because of WLAN security issues, Aruba's vision of unified wired and wireless access security (such as the Web-based 802.1x authentication for wired clients that do not support 802.1x natively) is a good one.

With the exception of its partnership with Alcatel, Aruba has not pursued an OEM partnership strategy very aggressively. This may hurt the company in the long term, especially since more and more enterprises are looking to buy wired and wireless from the same vendor. Aruba had planned to take advantage of closer ties with Alcatel and integrate Alcatel's voice over WLAN (VoWLAN) and security components into its lineup, but we have not seen the company execute in this direction with its partners. Companies considering Aruba must be wary of the inherent risks of doing business with a startup. But we believe the company is doing a good job of distinguishing itself from other WLAN startups, and its product strategy, along with its "direct touch" sales strategy, has helped it win some major opportunities worldwide.

Consider Aruba when wireless LAN is being considered as an overlay of wired LAN.

Bluesocket

Bluesocket's original positioning was based on its WLAN overlay security and management appliances for enterprises that had deployed APs from different vendors. Bluesocket marketed its

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security offerings as an improvement over Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), but following the ratification of 802.11i, and as enterprises started moving toward third-generation WLAN products, the market for third-party security and management gateways started shrinking. As a result, Bluesocket introduced third-generation WLAN switch architecture in 2005 and joined the ranks of the wireless switch vendors. The company has a solid offering (it was the first enterprise vendor to launch MIMO APs), but is difficult to differentiate.

Bluesocket's brand presence should help it win business from existing accounts, but overall it has limited coverage. It is challenged by its sales and distribution channels. The company is too small to support a large stable of direct sales representatives, and it has no partnerships in place with incumbent wired networking vendors.

Bluesocket's existing customers (which bought its authentication gateway products to manage security of various vendors APs) consider its third-generation centralized controller and coordinated APs when upgrading or expanding their WLAN. But we have doubts about its capability to expand beyond this customer base or to defend it completely. In our end-user survey, we found that Bluesocket customers were particularly happy with user-based policy control features, such as per-user bandwidth control, filtering, logging and detailed reports by roles.

Consider Bluesocket if you have deployed APs from different vendors and would like to expand the network by deploying a third-generation WLAN solution.

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems continues to be the leader in the market, and its position has been strengthened following the introduction of the centralized WLAN products.

Cisco is able to meet much of the mainstream market requirements. Its WLAN product portfolio consists of stand-alone APs, WLAN overlays consisting of coordinated APs and centralized controllers, and WLAN service blades for its Ethernet switches. The company is in a good position to continue to garner share, since most of the enterprises are looking toward their incumbent wired networking vendor to provide WLAN products as well.

Two reasons that make Cisco customers look elsewhere are wireless network management and the cost of the solution. For wireless networks that consist of multiple generations of products, enterprises use two different products for network management — a WLAN service engine (WLSE) for stand-alone APs and a wireless control system (WCS) for centralized controllers and coordinated APs. But these two products are not very well integrated and capabilities are quite different. In such cases, enterprise either have to look at some third-party vendors for WLAN management or else develop custom applications. Product features are similar to many other vendors included in this report, but the price of the solution is much higher.

Meeting the challenges will take time, but Cisco's other strong attributes in the areas of sales, marketing and customer support should keep it in a Leaders position for some time.

Given the breadth of product line and overall market influence, Cisco should be on a shortlist of vendors for all mainstream requirements. However, this shortlist must include other alternative suppliers to ensure a solution that meets the specific needs of the enterprise.

Colubris

Colubris's WLAN solution has more intelligence at the edge than most other vendors in this report and its controller is mainly tasked with WLAN infrastructure management (not RF management). Its WLAN offering consists of stand-alone APs and a central controller/server-based management system. Its access points enforce user authentication, QOS and radio frequency management.

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The controller automates AP deployment and configuration and also coordinates roaming handoffs between the APs.

Colubris's WLAN products are sold both to the enterprises and service providers, but most of the company's revenue comes from selling WLAN equipment through service providers into public venues. In the last year, it has shown a desire to expand its presence in the enterprise networking market and is planning to selectively target certain vertical markets. Its offering is especially attractive to enterprises that have a distributed office environment (with a large number of small branch offices). Colubris has the infrastructure in place to perform WLAN billing to business units. Consider this product if you have a large number of distributed branch offices where you want to provide local authentication, but want to manage configuration and infrastructure from a central location.

Enterasys Networks

Enterasys Network's WLAN offering consists of a stand-alone, fully-functional AP 4102 product, which allows its customers to deploy a granular policy-based wireless security approach to the specific user level at the network edge, without the need for a central controller or virtual LAN. Enterasys also resells a centralized WLAN solution through an OEM partnership with Trapeze. While it promotes its own stand-alone APs more aggressively, it does provide a software upgrade for stand-alone APs, allowing them to work as coordinated APs in a switch controller-based centralized architecture.

Enterasys is in a transition from being a publicly traded company to becoming part of a private equity arrangement. The new management team is showing some early signs of getting

Enterasys back on track from an execution perspective. Enterasys added some new customers in the last few months, but the biggest challenge it faces is winning back the confidence of its customer base, which has been nervous about carrying out any further upgrades using Enterays's wired and wireless LAN products.

Extreme Networks

Extreme Networks launched a new WLAN offering in partnership with Siemens. Extreme is still catching up with the market — its revenue in the WLAN category is lagging behind the market growth rates.

Along with the partnership with Siemens for WLAN, it also announced a partnership with AirTight for wireless intrusion prevention system (IPS) products. Through OEM partnerships, it now has various components required to craft out a decent WLAN solution, but not much work has been done to integrate all the pieces to make it easier for customers to deploy and manage their WLAN.

Extreme's WLAN offering primarily appeals to its existing customer base of Ethernet switches. Consider Extreme's WLAN products if your company has deployed its wired networking switches.

Extricom

Extricom is a late entrant to the WLAN market, having stumbled on the marketing front for some time to get its technology to markets where WLAN sales have been active.

We classify Extricom as a fourth-generation WLAN vendor, where all APs are deployed on the same channel, creating a blanket of coverage. By applying centralized per-packet control of all transmissions, co-channel interference is avoided, eliminating the need for cell planning and delivering a predictable data rate to each client. The blanket topology enables seamless mobility by eliminating the delays of AP-to-AP handoffs, which benefits real-time, latency-sensitive

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applications such as VoWLAN. Extricom’s approach is also able to create multiple overlapping channel blankets, from the same switch and set of APs, to deliver better QOS through the assignment of separate physical channels to different applications or user types (such as voice/data or 802.11b/g/a)

While this architecture addresses interference problems, it does limit the scalability of the solution. Extricom controllers require APs to be directly connected (it operates at Layer 2 only) and its biggest controller supports 24 access points. In larger deployments, where multiple 24-port controllers are to be deployed, roaming between APs of different controllers may not be seamless.

Consider Extricom where WLAN is being deployed to support multiple applications that require predictable bandwidth and RF coverage.

Foundry Networks

Foundry Networks had been unable to break out of its stagnant position in the WLAN market with its original offering. So, in May 2006, it announced a new WLAN offering in OEM partnership with Meru to make up for the lost ground. This product will not ship in volume till 4Q06. Note that feedback we received from reference customers for this report was based on Foundry's older offering.

Foundry continues to target specific, technology-oriented customers interested in high

performance and port density for its wired networking products, and its new offering now allows it to sell a latest-generation WLAN platform with all the features that will appeal to its high-end customer segment of wireless networking products. Foundry has the technical foundation to integrate WLAN solutions into its wired offering, but there is little evidence that it is inclined to offer integrated wired and wireless switches based on Meru's platform.

Consider purchasing WLAN infrastructure from Foundry if you have deployed its wired networking products.

Meru Networks

Meru Networks is a fourth-generation network, meaning that network access is controlled by the APs as opposed to the normal CSMA method where client devices control access to the wireless medium. As a result, one of Meru's key strengths continues to be its technical innovation. For example, Meru launched a clever way of intrusion detection without having to deploy dedicated sensors or having to time-slice between sensing and traffic delivery. The capacity advantages that Meru's fourth-generation architecture brings have helped it with initial sales, especially where concerns about voice capacity were important. Japan was a key early market and Meru was able to gain marketing leverage from a large-scale, all-wireless office (voice, PCs and notebooks) at Osaka Gas.

Meru expanded its wireless VoIP message to the “All Wireless Enterprise” theme in North America and elsewhere. Yet marketing and awareness remain challenges, as well as its need to prove that the processing burden placed on its controllers by its technology can scale to the largest systems. Its biggest controller supports 150 APs.

Meru is offering QOS on an application basis, going beyond the 802.11e standard, which only specifies QOS per device. In our survey of end-user organizations, we found that two of Meru's features resonate particularly well in the market:

1. RF coordination (no co-channel interference, roaming capabilities and capability to handle 802.11b and g clients without forcing the g clients down to 802.11b).

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2. Capacity (number of clients per AP).

These features are especially attractive where the number of users per AP cannot be ascertained and different types of applications are being run on a WLAN. Meru will appeal to those

organizations that have a clear preference for voice capabilities. Its architecture is also suitable for denser deployments where network connection requirements are difficult to predict.

Nortel Networks

Nortel Networks began 2004 as Airespace's primary sales channel and quickly positioned itself as one of Cisco's closest competitors in capturing enterprise business. It was the only vendor that seemed to garner share away from competitors. But Cisco's acquisition of Airespace left Nortel scrambling to explain to its clients what had happened and trying to find a replacement for Airespace. Nortel then entered an agreement with Trapeze to resell its WLAN products, but it did not start selling the new offering till 4Q05.

Although Nortel is in a better position than most other wired networking vendors to sell more WLANs (given that a large number of enterprises like to purchase wired and wireless LAN products from the same vendor), it sales force is not selling WLAN aggressively. To attract business from its own client base, it is important for Nortel to make WLAN a more strategic imperative within the company. As wireless voice over IP (VoIP) becomes a compelling proposition in the enterprise space, it could gain some market notoriety through its presence in the IP-private branch exchange (IP-PBX) market.

Consider Nortel for WLAN if you have deployed wired networking switches from Nortel.

Enterprises that like Trapeze's offering but would like to buy from a more established player can also look toward Nortel.

HP Procurve

Hewlett-Packard's (HP) Procurve has launched a new WLAN offering based on Symbol's technology. Its original OEM partner for WLAN controller technology, Vernier, has refocused toward network access control (NAC), and for HP to compete more effectively with its

competitors, it needed a more committed partner. Symbol was a good match, as it doesn't have wired networking products, while HP needed a controller-based centralized WLAN offering. HP is further ahead of its competitors in terms of integrating wired and wireless management into one console. However, HP's 5300 switch line has a wireless blade, and not one of the latest 5400 series switches that the company is marketing more aggressively.

HP Procurve's edge networking switches have proven themselves a strong alternative to Cisco's, with the company's most significant successes coming in the midsize market. Its Layer 2

centralized WLAN offering, derived from a partnership with Symbol, is integrated with its wired offering, including support from HP's management and security components. HP's management products are its hallmark, enabling it to coordinate protection of the network by controlling wired defensive actions based on wireless events and vice versa. However, its management products could provide more depth and improvement to the user interface. HP Procurve also sometimes suffers from poor awareness within the context of its larger parent. HP's recent announcement regarding WLAN design services for Cisco's WLAN products proves that the parent company has little faith in HP Procurve's offering. This leads to the conclusion that the group will be spun off from HP at some point. However, due to new management and the solid profitability of the group, we believe this action will be deferred and need not be a concern for buyers.

HP Procurve's centralized WLAN offering will only appeal to its existing customers that have deployed 5300 series switches, although HP Procurve has plans to launch a similar WLAN blade for the 5400 series. Also, organizations looking toward Symbol handhelds and who desire a

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single vendor footprint across the carpeted and non-carpeted areas (manufacturing floors and so on) can consider HP Procurve.

Siemens

Siemens has now fully absorbed Chantry following the recent acquisition. However, this has not significantly improved Siemens stand-alone WLAN sales, thanks to a variety of other events that stand to confuse buyers. Siemens is a reseller for many data-networking vendors, including Cisco, Nortel, Extreme, Foundry and Huawei. Recently, Siemens also announced a global strategic alliance and master reseller agreement with 3Com to integrate and sell 3Com's data networking and enterprise security products and services (via Siemens’ direct sales organization and indirect channels). As one of the integration initiatives, the Siemens HiPath Wireless portfolio will be integrated with 3Com's TippingPoint IPS, and 3Com will certify the interoperability of Siemens' HiPath WLAN and its network management platform. 3Com also has an OEM partnership with Trapeze for WLAN.

After the recent merger of the Siemens network infrastructure business with Nokia, many called into question the future of Siemens' enterprise networking business. The prognosis for this business is still uncertain, and it will hurt business opportunities until Siemens can make it clear to buyers what direction this venture will take. Siemens' product marketing has been lukewarm, with little visibility in the deals we have reviewed.

Siemens' WLAN products have been deployed in some large networks. However, most of the sales were in Western Europe and have been generated from "pull through" sales of existing and new HiPath PBX sales. Our customer survey indicates that Siemens customers like centralized management features, such as detailed reporting capabilities on AP status and users that are connected to the network. However, some work is required on the display of this data. Customers are also happy with the ease of configuration of WLAN networks using Siemens products. Siemens will find many applications where WLAN technology will be integrated into its core products, including healthcare and building monitoring. WLAN technology may be sold in a manner similar to the way Symbol sells its WLAN, as part of a vertically oriented system. This latter approach is most relevant for prospective buyers.

Symbol Technologies

Symbol Technologies has maintained its presence in the WLAN market largely thanks to years of experience in wireless, especially in vertical market systems in combination with its handhelds sales. It is currently the No. 2 player in this space. Symbol has tried to expand beyond its traditional markets, but its lack of wired equipment and poor brand recognition in the networking market have hindered those efforts. Symbol did well to scale back those efforts and instead construct a partnership with HP, where it now has an outlet to address organization-wide deployments of WLAN. It has also worked with IBM to supply a controller blade for the eServer product to address the needs of retail companies.

Symbol plans to add a Layer 3 mobility service in 4Q06, which will broaden its offering. It also plans to integrate other network types such as Zigbee, cellular and WiMAX through its Wireless Next Generation (Wi-NG) architecture to give organizations a more cost-effective means to roam across a variety of networks. This direction of integrating multiple wireless technologies fits with a key theme of Motorola's (Motorola recently made an announcement to acquire Symbol, see "Motorola/Symbol Deal Will be Challenging, Though Promising"). Symbol's centralized WLAN offering with thin AP architecture delivers a low cost per square foot, and Wi-NG will continue this effort.

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Symbol can support a variety of client devices, but it is in combination with its handhelds that clients will reap the greatest benefit from their Wi-Fi products. Symbol's Mobile Services Platform (MSP) provides customers with a strong management tool that combines both handheld and WLAN infrastructure management under one offering. Symbol has also done some work in the voice integration segment, and has more practical experience than many of its competitors, though this lead may not last for long.

Symbol's WLAN offering appeals to vertical markets such as manufacturing, retail and healthcare, where it sells its handhelds.

Trapeze Networks

Trapeze Networks has improved its position most, primarily thanks to a rearchitecting of its distribution strategy. Trapeze's products are sold through one of its two major channels consisting of OEMs and resellers. Its OEMs — 3Com, Enterasys and Nortel — are expected to be joined by at least one other partner by the end of 2006. These vendors "private label" the product and market the WLAN offerings' integration with one or more of their core offerings, such as their wired infrastructure, management tools and/or voice systems. Trapeze also sells its own brand through its resellers. Channel management is accomplished naturally through the various players' differentiated services and complimentary capabilities against the OEM offerings. Yet Trapeze, by its own admission, would like to increase its reseller sales, an effort that in our opinion will require differentiating the offering from what is supplied to the OEMs. How it manages this effort will determine whether it can rise to the top tier among the startup vendors. A new Trapeze marketing organization is expected to tackle this issue, along with raising overall brand awareness.

Trapeze has long been known for its management product, RingMaster, yet our user surveys showed that it lost sales due to perceived weakness in this area. We believe this was due to a poor organization of the features in the product, a problem that has since been rectified. Trapeze has shored up its wireless intrusion detection system (IDS)/IPS through a partnership with AirDefense, enabling roll-up of AirDefense alarms directly in the RingMaster console, as well as on-the-fly conversion of APs to sensors (since both companies use the same AP hardware supplier). Trapeze also promotes a distributed forwarding architecture where APs decrypt the frame and tunnel the decrypted 802.11 frame to a central controller where forwarding decisions take place. But it has done so by claiming centralized encryption approaches are less effective from a networking perspective. We expect Trapeze to become less prescriptive in its sales approach and move instead to emphasize the fact that it offers a great range of choices that should appeal to buyers. Furthermore, any one approach taken by a buyer at the outset can be transformed once the product is installed. This flexibility should help the company grow in the coming year but, as mentioned earlier, it will be a marketing challenge to craft these messages to become more broadly understood.

Xirrus

Xirrus is one of the late entrants to the WLAN market. It has developed a WLAN array, which has multiple directional radios. Its design combines an onboard WLAN switch and up to 16 Integrated APs with a high-gain, multi-sector antenna system. With this architecture, the number of devices to be deployed will be reduced, especially when deploying for higher capacity (such as in a lecture hall). Xirrus's management suite can control up to 500 arrays and is primarily for

infrastructure management (configuration, firmware upgrades and reporting); not specifically for RF management. Each array is responsible for managing the RF environment and roaming of clients between APs and between APs on different arrays.

Consider this solution when pulling cable to individual AP locations may not be feasible, but one array with multiple APs can meet the requirements.

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RECOMMENDED READING

"Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes: How Gartner Evaluates Vendors Within a Market"

Acronym Key and Glossary Terms AES Advanced Encryption Standard

AP access point

BSSID Basic Service Set Identifier

CA Collision Avoidance

CSMA Carrier Sense Multiple Access

IDS intrusion detection system

IEEE Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers

IP-PBX IP-private branch exchange

IPS intrusion prevention system

MIMO multiple input, multiple output

MSP Mobile Services Platform

NAC network access control

QOS quality of service

RF radio frequency

SOHO small office/home office

SMB small and midsize business

VoIP voice over IP

VoWLAN voice over WLAN VPN virtual private network

WCS wireless control system

WEP Wired Equivalent Privacy

WLAN wireless LAN

WPA2 Wi-Fi Protected Access 2

Evaluation Criteria Definitions Ability to Execute

Product/Service: Core goods and services offered by the vendor that compete in/serve the

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whether offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as defined in the market definition and detailed in the subcriteria.

Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization): Viability includes an

assessment of the overall organization's financial health, the financial and practical success of the business unit, and the likelihood of the individual business unit to continue investing in the product, to continue offering the product and to advance the state of the art within the

organization's portfolio of products.

Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor’s capabilities in all pre-sales activities and the structure

that supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation, pre-sales support and the overall effectiveness of the sales channel.

Market Responsiveness and Track Record: Ability to respond, change direction, be flexible

and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act, customer needs evolve and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the vendor's history of responsiveness.

Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed to deliver

the organization's message in order to influence the market, promote the brand and business, increase awareness of the products, and establish a positive identification with the product/brand and organization in the minds of buyers. This "mind share" can be driven by a combination of publicity, promotional, thought leadership, word-of-mouth and sales activities.

Customer Experience: Relationships, products and services/programs that enable clients to be

successful with the products evaluated. Specifically, this includes the ways customers receive technical support or account support. This can also include ancillary tools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof), availability of user groups and service-level agreements.

Operations: The ability of the organization to meet its goals and commitments. Factors include

the quality of the organizational structure including skills, experiences, programs, systems and other vehicles that enable the organization to operate effectively and efficiently on an ongoing basis.

Completeness of Vision

Market Understanding: Ability of the vendor to understand buyers' wants and needs and to

translate those into products and services. Vendors that show the highest degree of vision listen and understand buyers' wants and needs, and can shape or enhance those with their added vision.

Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently communicated

throughout the organization and externalized through the Web site, advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.

Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling product that uses the appropriate network of direct and

indirect sales, marketing, service and communication affiliates that extend the scope and depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the customer base.

Offering (Product) Strategy: The vendor's approach to product development and delivery that

emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology and feature set as they map to current and future requirements.

Business Model: The soundness and logic of the vendor's underlying business proposition. Vertical/Industry Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to

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Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources, expertise or

capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or pre-emptive purposes.

Geographic Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the

specific needs of geographies outside the "home" or native geography, either directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries as appropriate for that geography and market.

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